Chapter Two:

No More


Hemlock Potter

Late 2016.

Hemlock found Henrik out in the garden, sitting in the grass beneath a blanket of emerging stars, drawing pad abandoned at his hip. She hesitated by the door before making her way over and sitting quietly beside him in the chilly night.

It was safer for her at night, safer for all those around her, far away from the noontime sun.

"What are you doing out here? Aren't you meant to be getting ready for your sleepover?"

Henrik doesn't answer her, merely shrugging in the dark. Hemlock glanced over to the drawing pad.

He was a good artist, Henrik. Some people were like that, better with paintbrushes than with words. Hemlock herself was no poet, and neither could she draw more than a stickman, but she was one hell of a florist.

Cheers dad, she thought. At least you gave me something good.

Everybody had their way of speaking. You just had to learn to speak it. Slowly, she reached over and plucked up the drawing pad.

Six people in charcoal stared back, unblinking, frozen in a time from long ago, their faces, every single one, scribbled out angrily leaving only Henrik grinning in the middle, clearly the youngest, clearly alone.

Her finger traced the curve of a blank, scrawled-out gloomy face.

"Who are these fine fellows with no faces?"

Henrik doesn't look at her, another shrug, a distant reply.

"My family."

Ah.

The drawing pad dropped to her own lap, and she stared at Henrik's face for a long while, pale in the starlight, faraway, fallen.

She'd done this, Hemlock thought.

She'd caused this grief.

Naturally, she had not meant to. She never meant to cause any pain, and yet, seemingly, that is all she was good for.

She never learns.

The paper crinkled beneath her hold, a shine rising from the depths of her skin like sunrise cresting over a snow-capped mountain top, momentarily lighting up the dark garden, still rising, hotter and hotter and-

And the noise of rumpled paper singing and the force of the glow forced her to relax should she inadvertently tear the paper in two.

Or burn the garden down.

Or blind dear Henrik.

Cheers for that too, dad.

"I… I miss them."

Of course he did. Just as Hemlock missed Sirius and Remus, Hermione and Ron, and innumerable others.

These people between her hands were likely dead, and had been dead for a long, long time, but for Henrik it was still new, still fresh. The pain of loss would never go away, you merely learned to carry it with you better.

Hemlock knew that personally.

"Have you ever heard of the theory about the conservation of energy?"

Still not looking at her, Henrik shook his head.

Hemlock gazed up to the sky.

Sirius's star was bright that night. Its light brushed her face, twinkled in her own eye, and she held it there tightly.

"The theory states that energy within our cosmos is predetermined and fixed. All the force of the universe was created when it was, and there will never be anymore or any less. Thermodynamics declares that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You, me, Abra, that tree over there, even the house behind us is all hewn from energy created a billion, billion, billion years ago."

Depositing the drawing pad between them, Hemlock faced Henrik, gentle, understanding, shine dimming to a lacklustre afterglow. It may have been safer for everyone involved with her at night, but it was harder to hide what she truly was.

Master of Death the wizarding world called her.

They had no fucking idea.

"Those we've lost, Henrik, are never really gone. All their energy, every cell and vibration, even beat of a heart, ever blink and laugh and sigh and cry, every wave of every particle that was them remains with us in this world. Amid the nuclear energies of the cosmos, between the muggles and the stars and the gods, they gave as good as they got, and they all leave their marks."

Henrik turned to face her, eyes damp. Hemlock found it hard to swallow, but she does. She's getting good at that now.

Swallowing the bitter.

"All the particles whose paths were interrupted by their smile, a touch of their hair, a brush of their hand, hundreds of trillions of particles have all raced off into the universe like their children, their ways forever changed by those gone."

A tear crests on a lash. His, hers, both.

And still, Hemlock does not stop.

Henrik needed to hear this, and maybe, just maybe, she did too.

"Every photon that has ever bounced off their face were gathered in the particle detectors that are your eyes, and those photons created within your constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever… There they are in your eyes, Henrik. And they always will be."

Reaching over, she braced a gloved hand on his small shoulder.

"Energy gives off heat, and that heat does not fade when they do. It's here, still, warming cold nights, and colder days. They're not ever really gone, Henrik, they're still around us every day of every life, and a million more to come. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of them is gone… They're just less organized."

The boy shuffled closer, clutched her hand tightly, and rests his head upon her own shoulder. Hemlock leant into his head, careful not to touch him with her bare skin, exhaling into a curl.

This is the closest she would ever get to anybody, and she savoured the feeling.

She loathed it too. People, Hemlock thought, could be complicated that way. Soft and violent, loving and hateful, divine and mortal.

Perhaps none more so than herself.

"Do you think that's what you do, 'Lock?"

Hemlock hummed questioningly, and Henrik continued.

"Make order of the particles? Make the energies whole again?"

Maybe… But she could also disperse those energies too, absorb them sometimes, unleash disease and pestilence, famine and madness and-

What she could do, what she had done before, it wasn't… Good, and, unfortunately, it wasn't bound by any laws. If it were, conceivably she could hold Henrik's hand without two pairs of thestral hide leather gloves on, feel someone cradle her cheek, Merlin-

She could have a hug without the body between her arms disintegrating to dust.

She misses hugs, and although Hemlock never really had many of them before dying the first time, she thought she liked the idea of them.

To hold and just be held.

Obviously, Hemlock did not tell Henrik this. He was just a child, and if she had a say in the matter he'd stay that way, innocent, happy, for many more years.

But what about when he aged? What if he grew and she would have to see him-

Not here, not now.

"You might be onto something, kiddo."

The nudge worked, and Henrik huffed, slipping his hand from hers to cross his arms petulantly.

"I'm not a kid! I'm twelve, now."

He said it as if twelve could mean twenty. Perhaps where he came from, it did, but is sure as Circe didn't mean it here.

Hemlock ruffled his hair, and Henrik scowled harder.

"That's right! You'll be out of diapers soon, right? Do you still need bottles? A blanky? Do you want me to rock the ikkle' baby?"

Henrik chuckled and smacked her hand from his hair.

"Why are you always going for the hair?!"

"If you brushed it once in a while, I might not have to. Is that a bee's nest in there?"

Henrik tore a handful of grass from the ground and threw it right in her face, laughing as she spluttered on a clump of mud.

Standing up, she brushed her hands off on her torn jeans.

"Want to come watch a movie?"

Henrik nodded, and the two made their way back into the house.

Maybe that's what moving on was. Not forgetting, or forgiving, or leaving things behind, but… Building something new to hold and be held by. Maybe it was creating memories just like these, of the best times and the worst, but always together.

That's the way it was when you loved someone.

The way it had to be.

Not perfect, never perfect, but together.


Hemlock Potter.

Late 2016

Henrik snored beside her on the sofa, curled up and asleep between the chesterfield cushions. Silently summoning the TV remote, Hemlock turned the movie off, conjured a warm blanket, and laid it over the sleeping form who snuggled further down into the warmth. For a moment, she simply stood at the end of the couch, watching the chest rise and fall, climb and drop, grow and plunge.

Life.

Life she had somehow given the boy.

Twisting on her heel, she made her way out of the living room, switching the light off as she went, carrying her own shine with her as she vanished around the corner of the door. On her way to the kitchen, she stole the dead fern on the hallway windowsill, and grabbed the peace lily left dangling in the corridors hanging basket and brought both over to the breakfast isle in the middle of the kitchen.

From the lily Hemlock took a fleshly, green leaf, and place it down on the countertop, stealing a withered, brown shrivelled frond from the fern and placing that, too, beside the lily leaf.

Then she stood back.

"Attempt number eighty-four. Come on, you've got this."

Hooking her thumbs into her gloves, Hemlock slipped her deadly, lethal, hands free, flexing her fingers in the cold night air.

Possibly, Henrik had really been onto something a week ago in the garden.

Perhaps what Hemlock did truly was reorganizing energies. And if it were, if she could reorder energy, transfer it from one thing to another, take energy from living things and transfer it to dead things then…

Well.

Then she wasn't just a taker of life, was she? She could give it too. Gift it as she had given Henrik life from her dreams.

The sun grew crops as much as it scorched the earth.

Hemlock just needed to figure out how she had done it. If the conservation of energy was a sound theory, if energy within the universe was finite, that meant her powers were in a give and take tug of war.

She was a solar fuelled power bank. Now she just had to figure out how to tap into that power bank without blowing the fuses.

Bracing a finger above each leaf, dead and alive, Hemlock took a steadying breath.

Just a little tap. It was night-time, midnight to be exact, as far away a night could be from the sun, and in turn, the hour Hemlock was weakest. The time when she was less likely to cause much damage, less likely for this to go tits up.

Absorb the life from the lily leaf and transfer it to the fern.

Simple.

She could do this.

The tips of her index fingers touched down and-

The whole fuckin' table top crumbled into petrified wood, cracked marble and dusted screws.

A pile of aged, ancient burnt rubble.

Hemlock's hands flopped to her side, swinging pathetically.

"Bloody fantastic! I liked that granite too!"

The slippers on her feet withered, shrunk, and rolled to ash.

Closing her eyes, Hemlock tried counting down from ten just as the gleam below her skin began to expand, filling the room, all the dark little corners, every shadowed nook and cranny, leaving her nowhere to hide, nowhere to pretend, nowhere to look to and not see what she was.

She was getting worked up now.

Never a good thing when your mere touch could age things a thousand years, desiccate people, burn buildings to the ground, and, apparently, wreck the kitchen you had spent a few thousands on renovating.

She did not need to end up naked again, like she had in Athens.

Hemlock could control herself.

She could control this.

Her ability to wear clothes out, a majority, of the time and walk through a city and not leave it a wasteland said just as much, not counting that small village near Tell Ibrahim she had left in ruins. Her gloves not flaking off her hands every five seconds meant she could hold her powers back, if only when it came to already dead things like leather and wool and cotton. And she hadn't accidentally dusted the bed she was sleeping in for months.

Months!

Then why couldn't she just figure this out?

Why couldn't she hold someone's hand?

Why couldn't she be hugged, or kissed, or have a curl stroked behind her ear like all those cheesy movies she forced Henrik to watch?

Why couldn't-

Why couldn't she just be normal for once?

If she didn't get a handle on this soon-

The glow turned fierce, searing, blinding, devastating.

10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

When Hemlock's eyes opened, her slippers, the counter, and now her shorts were nothing but disintegrated scraps, but, thankfully, everything else seemed stable, if a bit… Crispy.

As good as anything could ever be around Hemlock Potter.

She stood and glared down at her bare fingers.

"I fuckin' hate you."

She wasn't really talking to just her hands or herself. She was speaking to Him too.

Erra.

Irra.

Nergal.

Whatever you wanted to call the bastard that had cursed her with this.

Cheers dad. Really gave me a loaded deck, didn't you?


Hemlock Potter

Late 2016

She's dreaming again. She knows she is. Strange dreams. Dreams that don't make sense. Dreams that feel oddly surreal and real simultaneously.

The man is before her again, lost in an ocean of darkness. She can't make out much of him. His edges are blurred as if someone had tried erasing him, and she can only grasp certain things, little things, soft things. A golden curl. The dimple on his left cheek. A dark blue-green eye, like dusk over the forbidden forest.

As always, she stands, and she watches, and she can do nothing as another formless shape comes from the dark, a big man, a mean man, a man with angry fists.

Just like Vernon.

They leave welts, bruises and split lips on dimple-boy just as much as Vernon's fists left their marks on her.

She still can't move.

The hands holding her to the ground, reaching up through the earth like tree trunks, bone white, cold, dead, keep her still, keep her silent, keep her from helping.

And that's all she wants to do.

That's all Hemlock ever wants to do.

Help.

By the end of it, the man is left on the floor, alone in the dark.

He cries into already damp soil, sobs, and Hemlock's chest aches with his own.

The hands retreat, slipping away like cut free ribbons, just as they had for Henrik, and suddenly, again, she could move.

She's slower this time around, more cautious.

Wounded animals lash out, none more so than people, and still, she can't help herself. She'd never been able to turn away from a person in pain.

And dimple-boy was in pain.

So much pain.

Her knees knocked as she slumped to the floor beside the bent and broken body, and her hand hovers over a crooked, rattling back.

It's just a dream, and in dreams she could do what she ached to do in the waking would.

Touch.

Her bare hand lands on his back, through some sort of coarse linin she could feel the heat from his skin.

It was cool against her own burning flesh.

"It's okay. You're not alone."

Hemlock doesn't know if he can hear her, she doesn't know if he can feel her there, he doesn't turn his head to face her, doesn't glance her way, gives no sign that he has any cognition of her presence, and maybe all this was just inside her head, but that didn't mean it wasn't real.

Her hand idly strokes over a broad shoulder.

"You're not alone."

She was blazing now, shining bright, lighting up the dark.

It was all Hemlock says because that was all she had wanted to hear when she was dumped in her cupboard with a swelling black eye from burnt bacon.

The back stills beneath her hand, calming, relaxing.

The sobs ease.

Maybe he can hear her, maybe he can feel her there, maybe he sees the light, maybe he can't, but Hemlock stays there for a long while, sitting beside the crumpled form, stroking at a shoulder, lighting the crushing dark, whispering the same three words over, and over, and over again.

Why?

Because she wished someone had done that for her once upon a time.


Rebekah Mikaelson

June 2017

"Do you smell that?"

Rebekah scowled and picked up the pace, strutting down the winding road in the French Quarter. She had to stop, however, when she realized Kol had dropped off a few feet back.

"Smell what? The stench? Yes, quite. They've really let this town go in the last century, haven't they?"

Kol, however, was not looking at her.

He was not walking, either, and seen as Elijah and Klaus had decided the best course of action was to split up into pairs to cover more ground, and hopefully weed out this so-called Wielder by nightfall, Kol's suddenly stationary form was a little bit vexing.

Huffing, Rebekah backtracked.

"Come on, Klaus and Elijah are scouting the French Quarter. We're meant to head over to the Garden District and-"

The breeze blew, carrying something that smelled of cranberries, winter winds, and something distinctly home.

Rebekah, too, froze.

"I know that smell."

She did… She just… Couldn't place it, akin to a lullaby you knew the tune to but had long ago forgotten the words. Familiar, like a tickle yet jarring too.

"I do too, sister."

Glancing down the street, Rebekah saw nothing out of place. A little voodoo shop advertising palm reading drawn on a chalkboard out front. A tattoo parlour with a dubious looking mortal smoking out ahead at 8 am. A bar with drunks still lumbering out its door. A florist called Pushing Up Daisies with a bicycle leashed outside.

Nothing noteworthy.

And then the florist's door opened, the faint jingle of a bell, and a boy came tumbling out. He barked something back through the door before he closed it and turned. Rebekah could see him in the warm morning light, and abruptly, she was a little girl again, hair braided, naïve and happy.

It was Henrik.

It hits her like a comet that explodes on impact, shrapnel lodging deep into her flesh, searing.

That was Henrik, with Klaus dimples, and Elijah's dark hair, and Kol's dark eyes, and her own soft face made softer by Finn's solemn features.

It was Henrik.

His memory still, after all this time, made her grief-stricken. Little brothers get you like nothing else. She remembered how he used to play, quiet in the corners, watchful yet playful. Such a gentle boy, such a lonely boy, but they had each other.

It was Henrik.

She remembered Klaus taking him swimming down in the ponds, and Elijah braiding his hair because Henrik would not brush it, and Finn stitching his torn clothes whole once more, and Kol teaching him how to climb a tree properly to get the best fruits up top, and she, at night, would whisper stories, fantastical stories, as he drifted off to sleep.

It was Henrik.

Rebekah remembered, in that moment, a whole different life in one flash. And it hurt. Remembering hurt. It was easy throughout so many decades, so many centuries, to not think of him, to not remember, because it made it easier, safer.

It was Henrik.

To grieve someone, one must first accept that they were truly gone. Rebekah had not, and would not, and though she had dug his grave a thousand years ago herself, with her own hands and her own fingers and her own tears, there had always been a part of her that had held that memory back, locked it away, buried it deep.

It was Henrik.

It was easier to pretend, to keep that part of herself alive, awake and aware, the one who would never believe Henrik wouldn't come bouncing around some corner to laugh at her, or to show her this stick doll or that rune carved twig, to pretend he was still there, just not at the moment. A little bit late, that was all.

It was Henrik.

However, he, of course, had never come bounding around the corner, he had never laughed at her again, or asked to dance once more, or shown her his etchings or the fruit he had gotten from the forests, or asked for one more story before sleep. Henrik was gone. Henrik was dead.

It was Henrik.

Then why was he before her now? Why was he unleashing the bike, and perching himself upon it, and beginning to cycle down the road? Who had braided his hair if not Elijah? Who had taught him to ride a bike if not Klaus? Who had made him smile backwards through the door if not Kol? Who had dressed him if not Rebekah? Who had made him fed and safe if not Finn?

It was Henrik.

How could a dead boy do any of that?

"Henrik…"

It could have been her own voice, or it could have been Kol's, given on a breathless whisper.

It was Henrik.

It wasn't Henrik.

It couldn't be. Her brother, her sweet little brother, was dead.

Then who was wearing his face?

The bike disappeared around a corner.

Kol was the first to follow, uncaring of who saw him zoom down the road.

Rebekah wasn't far behind.

Neither glanced to the Florist shop again.

That was their mistake.


Hemlock Potter

June 2017.

It was twelve o'clock, midday, where the sun rose highest in the sky, and Hemlock was busy at work, and far away from as many people as she could possibly be.

Nipping the wisps of baby's breath by the root with her gloved hands and a pair of small pruning scissors, hanging in blossomed heads and long, thin stems, she pushed the flowers around the dozen white chrysanthemums. The flowers looked like snowfall, like an avalanche over the alps. Dropping the scissors, she plucked up the dotted ribbon, tying it tightly around the base of the wire holding the bouquet together, finishing off with a merry little double bow.

If Jenny didn't go for a fifth date with Steve after this gift, the problem was, as it typically always was, the man himself.

From the desk in the back room of her shop, Hemlock faintly heard the phone ring. Humming quietly, she left the flowers where they were and made her way to the phone, plucking up the receiver and holding it just far enough away from her face that the skin did not touch the plastic, but close enough that she could still hear the voice crackle through the line.

"This is Pushing Up Daisies, where we put the petal to the metal."

But it wasn't Steve on the other end asking if his arrangement was finished yet. Neither was it Mrs Goldworth, primly bemoaning Hemlock's work but requesting yet another arrangement for her book club, and neither was it any other of her eight appointments.

"This is Miss Pilz from Edward Phillips Middle school. I was just ringing to check up on Henrik Potter today. Is this Hemlock Potter, his sister?"

Hemlock blinked owlishly.

"Yes, that's me… Check up on Henrik? What do you mean check up on Henrik?"

A pause over the line.

"It's protocol to ring and ask for absence explanations in the advent the parent or guardian does not ring in advance of registration or by lunch."

Another blink, and the floor beneath Hemlock's feet wavered. When she spoke, her voice broke on the last word.

"Absence? You mean… You mean Henrik isn't there?"

Another pause, drawn, lasting.

"No… No he hasn't been in all day. Is he not off sick? We know Henrik has good attendance, and his home room teacher had thought he was ill and-"

The voice continues but Hemlock couldn't hear her words through the ringing in her ears.

Henrik had to be at school. He had left that morning, and it was his first time going to school by himself, lamenting all week to get Hemlock to agree because, apparently, all the other kids didn't need dropping off, and she was embarrassing him by playing Queen so loud in the car, and-

Then where was he?

Henrik wasn't the type to bunk off school. Not like Hemlock had been at his age, rushing off at the slightest provocation to have midnight duels against Malfoy.

Henrik wasn't as hot-headed as she.

"Hello? Miss Potter? Are you still there?"

It had been too long for him to be purely late. He had left the shop at eight in the morning, and now it was noon, four whole hours, and if he were going to be so late he would have rung her on the phone to explain, she had bought him a mobile and taught him how to use it just for that, and-

"Miss Potter? Miss Potter?"

Could he have gotten lost? Unlikely. He knew not to go down alley ways, or out into the swamps, and he had promised her he would ride straight from the shop to school, no detours, no meeting up with friends, nothing, and Henrik didn't break his promises and-

"I think the lines gone dead. Miss Potter? Are you there?"

The gloves streaked to slag and ash.

The phone crumbled in her hand, cinders and dirt and sand unspun. The bouquet in the backroom wilted and shrivelled, and the flowers in her shop waned and shrunk and died.

The light came then, blistering from beneath her skin, from below.

Sizzling, livid light.

Something was wrong.

Something was terribly wrong.

Someone had found her.

Someone had found her, and had taken Henrik and-

She needed to find him, and-

She needed to pack their bags, they needed to go-

No.

No more running.

No more hiding.

She was sick of it. Sick of all of it. Sick of hopping from town to town. Sick of playing nice with people who either wanted her dead or under their thumb as a puppet. Sick and tired of holding back, always holding back, scared and alone and grappling with things she barely understood herself. Sick of losing everything, having it snatched from her, taken, stolen, killed.

Not Henrik too.

If these bastards wanted to come at her through Henrik, she'd show them what a horrible, dreadful mistake they had made.

The hand that had been holding the phone, now bare, clenched into a fist. The shrunken flowers burst to grey beneath the flare of light exploding, dead dust, filling the room with scattered remains that could never be restored. The paint on the walls flecked and spattered, peeling in the intense heat, as sunlight, ferocious, furious, ignited, shattering the windows of the small little flower shop, blinding those who had been too close to the florist, scorching the road outside to fire and flames.

She'd make what happened in Tell Ibrahim look like child's play.

If they hadn't learned then not to push her, they sure as fuck would now.

No more.

Four Hours Ago…


Next Chapters' Preview:

Klaus snarled, dragging away from the boy tied to the chair, hand bloody where he had been bit.

No, not a boy, Elijah thought. Something wearing Henrik's face.

"It's no use. We're wasting our time. We should just snap his neck and-"

Elijah shook his head at Klaus's leap to extreme violence. Had he expected anything else?

"We need to know who did this. We need to know who was capable of this. This is not Wiccan magic... I dare say this isn't even Wielder magic."

Kol snorted.

"We've tried getting him to talk, and nothing's worked yet. Whatever he is, he's spirited, I'll give him that."

Elijah sighed, and then it came to him.

"Maybe we don't need him to talk…"

xXx

"Are you sure this is going to work?"

Rebekah asked as she eyed the Wiccan Elijah had brought back home. The witch glared, but Elijah shrugged.

"Have you any other suggestion?"

Rebekah stayed quiet as the witch edged towards the boy, bracing her fingers against his temple. Henrik-

The boy, for he could not be Henrik, struggled against the move, but with Kol keeping his head firmly fixed against the backrest of the chair he had no where to turn. The fingers brushed skin…

Klaus grew impatient.

"Well? Do you see anything? Do you see who did this? Who the boy is beneath the magic?"

The witches gaze rolled to white, voice feeble, seeking.

"A cupboard… Alone… Scared… So scared…Running… She's always running… Where are you?... Give me just a glimpse… There you are… Oh… Oh god-"

The witch lurched back as if she had been burned, but it was too late. Her eyes erupted to flames, popping in the fire that ignited in her iris, screams, pained, filled the air as the witch fell to her knees on the rug, clawing at her fiery face.

She was dead by the time Elijah made it to her, rolling her onto her back.

Charred empty black sockets stared back into the room.

Kol whistled long and low.

"That's not a good sign, now, is it."

The boy, the thing still tied to the chair, shook his head.

"I told you not to look! You're not supposed to look at Hemlock when she shines!"

Hemlock.

A name.

Finally.

xXx

The thunderous boom came somewhere just past midday, and with it, the ground shook.

Screams came filtering in from the streets not long after.

"What was that?"

At Kol's question, Elijah glanced to the windows of the living room.

A window that, from outside, seemed to be getting brighter and brighter and brighter.

"It sounded like it came from outside."

Laughter.

The boy… He was laughing.

"You're in trouble now."


A.N: I had to stop it here because shit, quite clearly, hits the bloody fan next chapter, and I have a question for all you lovely people before we get there. People have been asking about the pairing, primarily about Finn and Freya not being included in it. I'm perfectly fine with adding them to the pairing, but, for plot reasons that will come later to do with the Soul Bond and exactly what Hemlock is (Which will be explored as we go along, answers are coming), I need the pairing number to either be Four (Klaus, Elijah, Kol, and Rebekah), or seven, so Klaus, Elijah, Kol, Rebekah, Finn, Freya and, I think, Marcel too. I can't really explain why I need the pairing to be four or seven, because it will give a way a big part of the plot, but I do. So, what do you guys think? Keep it at four, so Fem!Harry/Klaus/Elijah/Rebekah/Kol, or go all out balls to the wall Fem!Harry/Klaus/Elijah/Kol/Rebekah/Finn/Freya/Marcel?

I would really appreciate it if you guys let me know which one you prefer. You can do this in a Review, a Private Message, or I've set up a little Poll on my home page you can vote on. Do whichever you feel most comfortable doing, but please do let me know, as the outcome will affect what version of the next chapter I will post, and inevitably, which way this story is going.

I should be posting the next chapter next Tuesday, so you have a whole week to get to giving your vote.

Hope that all makes sense, and you all liked this chapter.

The dialogue on the conservation of energy is partially based on a quote from Aaron Freeman. Glorious stuff.

Once more, thank you all for the lovely favourites, follows and reviews! Each email notification I get has made me smile, and in turn, I hope I have made you smile too. I shall see you all next week, and until then, stay safe!